


Today is Forever and it is Sweet

by Lrihgo



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, Feel-good, Fluff, Future Fic, Lizard-like draconic Tiki, Married Couple, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lrihgo/pseuds/Lrihgo
Summary: Tiki steals an impromptu day on the country of post-war Chon'sin with her wife, the queen.





	Today is Forever and it is Sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Strawberrybats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberrybats/gifts).



> this work is for jess, come into fruition by bandit but instead imagine if bandit held the plug to my life support machine because the outlet is super thotty and just zapped that good sayriki back into my life. gimme these good goods, i love me these girls right here these ones. but i'm sorry it's not robot pegging. ):
> 
> if you like my work, check me out @chilopawbi on the twitter dot com
> 
> thank you and enjoy!

“I cannot ken nor condone such frivolous ideas.”

Arms crossed, brow set low, and coal eyes burn from underneath the circle of Say’ri’s straw hat, a familiar frown of disapproving lips curving down like daggers at her. 

Say’ri was a seemingly unmovable in her predispositions, but Tiki just happens to be, well, Tiki. So she presses, knowing that she’ll somehow find her way along this familiar path of resistance. 

Tiki fakes a noise of exasperation, twisting the thin stick of the object Say’ri currently hones her distaste on in between her clawed fingers. “You’ve lost the ability to humor me?” She tilts her head innocently into the question. 

Say’ri, stalwart as she remains fixed on her, still doesn’t budge. “Never have I even partaken. Pray tell how I’ve lost the ability to do something I have never been apt to.”

Tiki sighs her disappointment. “It’s just a little bit of fireworks. Has being cooped up at the palace for so long really turned your nose up at any spell of fun?”

At that, Say’ri flushes and sighs out her mouth, turning to continue down the beaten path out of the village. Tiki follows after, her rice straw shoes brushing against the sun kissed gravel. 

“We are doing poorly at remaining hidden, mind you,” Say’ri warns, steady and feeling as though she was exposing her insecurities forthright to her. She shivers at the thought of what her honorable and late parents would say at her carelessness. The aid of the winter air nipping at her cheeks incessantly helps to coax the sting she ought to feel from their disapproval from the heavens. 

“How do you figure?” Tiki asks casually, still twisting the firework in her grasp, looking down at it distractedly.

“T’would take one look from you none but a mile away to figure that you are the Voice due to your popularity in local tale and assumed to follow in her wake by natural association, her beloved, the queen of Chon’sin.”

“I need a disguise,” Tiki says as if it was the most simple thing in the world. 

Say’ri jumps at that, trying to understand how it was that she has wrought that conclusion. After all these years, she still can’t quite find her bearing around her wife. “Fie, no! I— _we_ are due to return to our homestead.”

But Tiki was already taking off her ring, as if that was a significant start to adapting a disguise. The thin wood of the firework is clamped in her mouth, the curve of her fangs holding it securely in place as she pulls her hair out of how it’s done up in her usual unruly ponytail.

Already dressed in typical Chon’sinese linens out of habit, it wasn’t much an improvement in terms of blending in. Her thick minty green hair falls around the iridescent emerald scales that cover her neck, slightly obscuring them from the back, at least. Tiki’s sharp reptilian irises focus on her as she fishes for Say’ri’s thoughts, looking expectantly at her.

Resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, Say’ri instead reaches out most impulsively and tugs gently on the stretch of one of Tiki’s long ears. “And these?”

Tiki’s brow furrows in confusion as she pouts. Say’ri wonders how in the world a creature that is four millennia old can manage such a childish expression. She’ll never get her answer if she hasn’t in the ten years they’ve been together.

Tiki reaches up and plucks off Say’ri’s straw hat, placing it on her own head. She pockets the firework and poses a bit meekly for her, grinning all the while. 

A flood of red clouds her cheeks as Say’ri sighs in defeat and looks elsewhere. “Now t’would only take a few feet to discern that you are the Voice, daughter of Naga, and this lumbering oaf, her wife, the queen of these lands.”

“I also want to hold your sword, if it would please you.”

Say’ri snaps her attention back to the still expectant looking Tiki, eyes bulging out at the ludicrousy of the request. “And I, your dragonstone!”

“Is that it?” Tiki perked up in excitement, shelling out the large blue gem from the folds of her clothes.

“T’was a joke!” Say’ri exclaims, fists balled at her sides as she practically feels steam blowing out of her ears.

Tiki doesn’t waste a second on the thought as she holds out the invaluable cut gem to her. “Oh, it was very funny!” Tiki claps her hands together over the blue of her dragonstone, sounding patronizing. “See, you can humor me!” 

Say’ri indignantly pulls out her katana and plants the brass end of the sheath into the ground and leans the handle against her front. She then begins to undo her sash, the notion causing Tiki to bounce up and down a bit in elated joy. “Had I not been married to you for a decade at length, I’d think I’d have gone mad from these charades by now!” 

“I’ll take good care of it! I won’t even pull it out. Just as long as you don’t happen to turn into a devilishly handsome dragon, I believe we are agreed upon that!”

“Keep the stone, lest we find trouble and I’m as fearsome as a newborn babe with my soft fists,” Say’ri sighs as she leans down, getting close unabashedly as she fashions the sash around Tiki’s waist, long since having chased away any insecurities about being shy due to Tiki’s overt intimacy she so shamelessly drags her through in public.

Tiki tilts the brim of the hat back slowly, chin angling up at her. Say’ri doesn’t try to dodge out of the way of her full lips, curled up in that dastardly and charming smile. She pushes up onto her tippy toes and kisses her cheek, a gesture of one part thanks and the other an apology. She knows herself to be difficult against Say’ri’s calloused nature, but she has mellowed out to her shenanigans since, being more receptive and accepting of such silliness where such sentiments previously didn’t live.

“We’ll most certainly be recognized if you keep this up,” Say’ri mutters, breath brushing Tiki’s temple as she fashions the final ties of the knot. She pretends to check her work, if only to draw out one more kiss from her beloved. Such roundabout ways of getting these things are a force of habit and hard to contain when Tiki has rubbed off on her so.

“ _Most_ certainly,” Tiki repeats in a whisper, withholding another kiss and failing to quell the nature of her deviousness as she darts out with her forked tongue and _licks_ Say’ri’s face.

In an instant, Say’ri pulls away, mouth parting to chastise but she promptly clamps it shut. She won’t humor a response to that. That was the only real way of getting back at Tiki for her tricks. And indeed, the pout Tiki sports again is genuinely a smidge disappointed as Say’ri wipes her already red cheek of the wetness there. But Tiki isn’t kept down for long as Say’ri slides the sword into the loop she has fashioned out of the sash at her waist.

“You are a ronin warrior of the lands. I see no dragon in disguise here,” Say’ri says in a most flat voice, crossing her arms again when all is said and done. “Shall we start back to the palace whilst you role play to your heart’s content?”

“Hmm,” Tiki fakes her consideration, already knowing her answer. “Nope!”

Say’ri wants to fall to her knees and pound at the earth. “May I inquire why we can’t return in a timely manner for my evening duties?”

“I’ve told you before,” Tiki says as she starts back down the path. “You’ve been cooped up for too long,” Tiki explains so simply as she places her hand casually on the hilt of her sword as she has seen Say’ri do so many times. It’s quite an empowering feeling! She knows now why she does it so much, and such a pleasure it is to continue to learn things about her years into their marriage.

“Mine being cooped up has much to do with the fact that a county cannot run itself,” Say’ri explains. Tiki knew this. Say’ri didn’t doubt she did. Tiki was the Voice of the Divine Dragon, but Say’ri was the voice of reason.

“Yes, but it isn’t healthy, bearing down and working as much as you do. And I know it bothers you none, the weight you carry on your shoulders. It’s always been becoming of you. But I’ve seen one king too many buckle underneath those very expectations and ruin himself.”

After no immediate response, Say’ri sighs and folds her hands into her sleeves, holding her elbows as her eyes scan the midday horizon. So Tiki and her share the title as voices of reason. Say’ri shares most things with Tiki now-a-days, anyway. “I am no king, my lady.”

Tiki grins and laughs a one-note laugh. She recognizes Say’ri’s dry humor easily. “You know what I mean.”

“Aye,” the soft response sounds, low and thoughtful as a bit of Tiki’s grin is mirrored on Say’ri’s lips. “You are lucky the nobles are no strangers to your mischievousness and we are taking these precautions as to go mostly unnoticed. Kidnapping the queen is, as you can imagine, quite treasonous.”

“Quite treasonous,” Tiki repeats, mirth on her voice. “Will they send horses? An army? Missiles from the skies and winged lancers on the wind? You know it took no less to bring down Grima.”

A name that used to strike such awe and terror in her is only amusing to hear, now. Say’ri peaks down at her companion. “I require none of that to defeat you.”

“Of course you don’t. Though, I am so horrible a fiend, am I not?” Tiki asks sweetly and Say’ri’s heart clenches anew at such a bright and loving smile that comes her way.

Say’ri breaths her response and averts her eyes elsewhere. “Nonsense.”

“Then, they shall expect us back in the morrow. How I have missed camping underneath a blanket of stars, the night sky, the forest air…” Tiki trails off and looks up towards the sparse clouds dotting the sky and Say’ri knows she’s defeated and resigned to the will of her charge. She may be ruler of the still war weary feudal Chon’sin, but she has still devoted herself, in more ways than one, to Tiki’s safety and happiness. She has already accompanied her to the ends of the earth where gods meet their fate. She will accompany her for a night out on the country.

Say’ri brushes the pad of her thumb against the band of her ring. No, she couldn’t deny this of her. Things would surely be fine in her brief absence. Such ease hadn’t always come so easily to her and she relishes in its relief on her healing soul.

“How is it that you plan on camping out when we haven’t a single bedroll or proper equipment with us for travel?” Say’ri asks, a rather important question, all considering.

“You think me so incapable of catching my own food? Of making something suitable to sleep upon?” Tiki asks back without missing a beat, her voice light.

“Nay,” Say’ri assures and makes to place her hand on the hilt of her sword out of reflex, but nothing is there. She pats her side awkwardly. “I had just thought this a trip of leisure, not one of work.”

Tiki turns and begins to walk backwards so that she can look up at her, ever an impenetrable beaming light of warmth. “Oh, it shall be one of leisure for you, good Say’ri. Just you wait!”

“As if I’d sit aside and let you pamper me whilst things must be set in order.”

As if expecting such an answer, Tiki nods her head in genuine agreement. “Oh, but I implore you to. I did kidnap you against your will, after all. A sly knave I would be if I dragged you out here and made you catch your own dinner.”

Say’ri sighs and runs her hands through her long silky hair. “I walked out with you, if my memory serves me.”

“It doesn’t.” 

“It does.”

“And you serve me,” Tiki reminds.

Say’ri sighs out of displeasure, because of course she would weaponize that against her now. “You cannot instruct me to twiddle my thumbs when I may yet aid you a helping hand where I see fit.”

“I can.”

That shuts Say’ri up for a moment. She resigns to her fate, again, and gives a low, rolling sigh. “We shall see about that.”

They walk at a steady, casual pace, an amiable silence soft between them as the crisp taste of salt on the air permeates through to their every sense. The earth beneath wears out from hard-packed dirt and drizzles into stretches of sandy beach. The bluest, most beautiful breaking waves this side of the continent touch the beach and the horizon as far as the eye can glimpse. 

Tiki removes her sandals and tabi socks after the sands start to swallow their steps up to their ankles. She glances back to Say’ri with that ever lingering glint of excitement in her eye and Say’ri can’t help a small smile as she does much the same in ridding herself of her footwear.

“The beachside touching the palace is not to your liking?” Say’ri teases as they start out closer to where the water kisses the sand. 

“It’s too groomed. It’s more appealing like this, don’t you think?” Tiki asks as she spins around her shoulder and begins to wade backwards through the sand, arms outstretched at acute angles for balance. “Plus, if we were at the palace, you would find any excuse to bring your work with you. It wouldn’t be just us, then. Ledgers and advisors make for poor company.”

Say’ri thinks on the validity of that, nodding her head softly and mostly to herself. She hasn’t been a very attentive a wife, she realizes. Her definition of living each day to its fullest is much different than Tiki’s larger than life perspective on _everything_. There should have been compromise but Say’ri has just been careless. 

A lump of what can be called regret knots tight in her chest. To think she has been wasting these past ten years, knowing well that they are short to Tiki, tucked away in her court, tackling political venture after venture and dueling her respect into the circles of those who doubt her, nose deep in the tax reports when it’s just the two of them, and complaining about the work still yet to be tended when the palace seems a distance and that far off obligation can’t touch her. 

Say’ri thinks she understands now. There is still plenty of time to fix this. Or at least within the time that she has left. She doesn’t fear how long or short the time may be. She just knows she can make it right. 

“Have you been lonely, my love?” She asks, stark and sudden, but more gentle than she previously knew herself to be. 

Tiki stops where she is in an instant where Say’ri advances until they’re a foot apart. 

“Hardly,” Tiki whispers solemnly as she tilts her hat down over her eyes, hiding from her in plain sight. “I know loneliness. I knew it before you or the Shepherds and I’ve known it plenty more in my four millennia. This isn’t it.”

And Say’ri believes her. She seems to have jostled something in Tiki. She was on the right track, then. “Have I been an absent wife?” Say’ri tries next. 

“Absent?” Tiki tries the word on her tongue, hesitating as she suddenly becomes interested in curling the long hair that falls in front of her shoulder around her finger. “Perhaps.”

That was Tiki’s usual politeness painting a very big _yes_ for her. Say’ri squares up, accepting this fault as her own. She couldn’t dwell on it for a second longer. 

She shoulders off her deep purple haori robe and sets it right out on the sand behind her, easing back onto it and sighing her relief at the warm and welcoming sand beneath before she pats the spot next to her invitingly up at where Tiki watches curiously. 

She’s joined a moment later, her sword handed back and laying like a bridge across her lap and Tiki’s stolen hat resting on the sand beside her. 

For a long while, the both of them look out to the rolling waters, the ocean winds trickling through their hair. 

Then, “If you require anything of me, you know but to ask and I will turn mountains for you. I would part seas, enrich the deserts, and pull the sky down so you may touch it,” Say’ri says very gently, her hand finding where Tiki’s rests on her lap and closing her battle worn fingers around the delicate curve of Tiki’s. 

“I know,” Tiki says, the smile warm on her voice. 

“You think me too addled a fool that I cannot attend to my lady and my duties both with awesome vigor? Mayhaps I am just that, but still, ‘tis no excuse for my shortcomings.”

Tiki shakes her head and leans against her, content but solemn. “I never said that.”

But she didn’t need to. Say’ri knows her well. She knows her much better than many ever get the chance to. 

“You think of me foremost and never once believe you need that attention in turn and I have been blinded by how formidable a creature you are. So silly have I been to have grown complacent and comfortable with your presence by my side… You are my anchor in a most treacherous storm, the humor and love I need blowing through my sails, and the support and guidance of the stars that navigate me through the night.”

Say’ri turns, her arm shifting behind Tiki to hold her close, their bodies fitting together so naturally in a way that she has dearly missed. Too long has she been ignorant to this calling. It is one she will never falter to answer with pride again. “I have not been everything I want to be for you. I long to remedy that and bid your forgiveness,” she whispers against the crown of Tiki’s head.

Next to her, Tiki relaxes in full, seeming to melt against her as she leans into the stretch of Say’ri’s neck and tucks against her so welcomingly, nestling and letting their closeness fill her soul to the brim with love. 

“You ask something of me that I’ve already given you,” the long awaited response comes muffled against her breast.

Say’ri’s lips press into a thin line as she sighs out the loathing and regrets she stows in her, wrapping her other arm around her wife to embrace her in full, pulling her into her lap. “‘Tis not acceptable, what I have done. T’would be only forthright for you to be angry with me.”

“That would be time wasted, don’t you think? You’ve already apologized,” Tiki says, wriggling out a bit so that she can prop up on Say’ri’s lap and meet her eye to eye. Say’ri’s attention catches on the flicker of Tiki’s tongue darting out to wet her lips, distracting as it were. “However. If you are so set on beating yourself up, then how about this?”

Tiki reaches into her breast pocket and unveils not just one single sparkler, but a bundle of smuggled fireworks similar to it.

“When did you—”

The soft pad of Tiki’s finger shoots up and presses against Say’ri’s lips, silencing her in an instant.

“What say you? Shall I make a glutton for punishment out of you yet?” Tiki says as she shells out her most devious smile yet.

And Say’ri can’t refute. She doesn’t lift a finger as their section of the beach it outfitted with a most luxurious palm frond mat and a fire roars tall and hungry up to the darkening night sky. Dinner is of Tiki’s volition, as well. Dragons make for surprisingly excellent swimmers and while Say’ri has tasted shark before, it wasn’t quite as pleasant as it was when her beloved catches and prepares it.

They crouch in the sand on the dark beach, the tips of their fireworks exploding out in beautiful sparkling stars of simmering blues and hot whites and sizzling reds. Say’ri is fascinated with the trail of smoke that they leave—with the trails of light that they draw in the air that seem to linger if she flings her stick back and forth fast enough. It’s childish, but Say’ri has learned that that is a boon, not a bane, fighting ever constantly against the grain of her strict upbringing. It’s also very beautiful. Though it holds no candle to the beauty of the woman next to her.

The cold Chon’sin autumn seems so far away when they lay out underneath the stars, full and warm, content and subdued, in love and living.

“Say’ri?” 

How her heart swells at the way she says her name, sweet like sugar and putting rest to her tired, war-torn soul. “Yes, my love?”

“Would you believe me if I said that every night with you feels just like this?”

“Just like it?” Say’ri repeats, turning her head to glimpse upon Tiki’s profile softly. She would seem unreachable wearing such a distant and wistful look, were it not for the interlocking of their fingers that keeps her grounded out of her deep thoughts. 

“Yes. We don’t have to be anywhere in particular for this to feel magical. If it’s with you, it’s special. And if it’s a weary day at the castle, raging of politics and taxes or of wars threatening your doors, then I remember it as a day blessed, for I have found that time with you.”

Say’ri’s eyes close at that, revelling in this shared wisdom from a wondrous being that she cannot possibly hope to grasp in full in her one short lifetime. But she’ll try. 

“I will treat each day as such, then.” And Say’ri looks back up to the stars and she sees herself elated among them.

“I’m glad.”

And so, Say’ri does.


End file.
